The birth of the Kraken

 

The story of how the Seattle Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena came to be is a long and arduous tale with more than its share of twists and turns. That journey, complete with political intrigue and a world-wide COVID lockdown, is chronicled in journalist Geoff Baker's book, Rising From The Deep.

Baker had a front-row seat to Seattle's quest for an NHL team in his role as the Seattle Times' sports investigative reporter, a position designed to follow the machinations of Seattle's quest for a new arena. As someone living in Seattle, Baker was able to weave what was going on in the city at that time from traffic problems, the presence - and power- of companies like Amazon and Starbucks, a socialist elected to the Seattle City Council, a mayor resigning in disgrace, COVID-19 and `Big Bertha' (non-Seattleites can look it up). And they all played a role in the fight for a new arena.

As a Seattle resident transplanted from the East Coast, I found Baker's views on Seattle amusing and mostly accurate. The author's actually from Canada - growing up in Montreal and working in Toronto.

From the time NBA Seattle Sonics skipped town in 2008 after then owner and Starbucks' CEO Howard Schultz sold the team to Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett, a segment of Seattleites clamored for a new basketball team and an NHL franchise.

But while Schultz was roundly criticized for wanting public funds to renovate Key Arena (ten years after the Sonics' home arena had previously been renovated), the arena was still a problem. Key Arena only seated 17,000, the smallest capacity for an NBA team.

The gist of this book concerns the uphill climb to revamp the old Key Arena into state-of-the art Climate Pledge Arena. And with private money. And in the midst of a world-wide pandemic where workers had to get special permits to continue working so the arena could reach its October 2021 deadline which marked the debut of the NHL's newest team - the Seattle Kraken.

Most impressively, the arena was rebuilt with a roof that was labeled an historical landmark and couldn't be removed. The roof was placed on stilts while the inside of the arena was wedged deeper into the ground. Climate Pledge now seats 18,300 for basketball and $17,151 for hockey.

There were heroes in the book as well. Tim Liewicke, CEO of the Oak View Group outbid his former company AEG, for building rights to the new arena. Liewicke along with co-founders and co-majority owners David Bonderman and Jerry Bruckheimer, under the auspices of Seattle Hockey Partners, put $1.6 billion into the building of Climate Pledge. Liewicke's brother Tod became CEO of the Kraken; he held a similar position with the Seattle Seahawks.

Even Amazon, blamed for a lot of the city's problems by many residents, chipped in to buy naming rights for the arena. But instead of Amazon Arena, the venue was christened `Climate Pledge Arena.' Critics claimed that Amazon burned too much fossil fuel with its delivery systems, but Climate Pledge would be the first arena run entirely on renewable energy with an ice rink frozen by rainwater.

One of the criticisms of the book by a reviewer on the Goodreads web site was that it's too `celebratory of wealthy industrialists,' but Baker's fairly objective in his narrative of events. The author clearly thought that the Key Arena reboot was more practical than a proposal by financier and lifelong Sonic fan Chris Hansen to build an arena in Seattle's SODO District down the street from the baseball and football stadiums.

In retrospect, he was proven correct, but Baker admits there was a time when many (most) fans thought the SODO area was a likely path to the return of the Sonics. However, it wasn't publicized at the time, that the NBA didn't want anything to do with Hansen. NBA commissioner Adam Silver told Seattle mayor Ed Murray as much.

Hansen and Murray aren't celebrated in the book. Hansen made the NBA's doo-doo list in 2013 when he donated $100,000 to a group opposing a new arena for the Sacramento Kings. Hansen hoped to buy the Kings and relocate the team to Seattle. Plus, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who would have partnered with Hansen in the deal, would go on to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers for two billion dollars. Without Ballmer, Hansen grew less attractive to the NBA.

Murray, who was interviewed by Baker for the book, said he found Hansen `arrogant and entitled,' but Murray still supported Hansen when he went before City Council looking to purchase a street in SODA saying he wanted to keep all options for a new arena open. Hansen lost the street vacation, 5-4, with the men on the council voting with Hansen and the women against him. 

The women - who would go on to support the privately funded Climate Pledge Arena- received threatening phone calls and text messages from a minority of angry fans. One can wonder if Murray, had said publicly that he'd been told the NBA wanted no part of Hansen, would he have saved the council members some aggravation. Murray eventually resigned after allegations of sexual abuse

Overall, Rising From The Deep is a well-researched and entertaining look at how the Kraken came into existence - although very little is specifically about the team. The story ends at Gas Light Park where the Kraken announced their player selections in the expansion draft.